Category: Australian History

Whenever we travel to Bendigo The Merchant of Malmsbury is where we break the journey. Len has made this wonderful place his business for travellers like us to stop off and enjoy coffee and home made scones, jam and cream in the garden. His shop is crammed with interesting curios and his own brilliant photography artwork. In another life Len once worked in a Melbourne drafting office which he shared with an Afghan Hound. Hence there was always a warm welcome for Charlie and now Maggie. There is some fascinating historic C19th architecture including The Merchant’s in this small village. The Botanic gardens are also historically significant. Malmsbury is a lovely place to escape the monotony of the Calder Freeway.

Whenever we travel to the Grampians or very occasionally Adelaide a lunch or coffee break at Lake Wendouree in Ballarat is planned. Charlie had many picnics by the lake and now Maggie has experienced her first two. The circumference of the lake is around 6 kilometres and it sits in the heart of this city so there are always joggers, dog walkers, cyclists or strollers on the path or adjacent road. Ballarat is the home city of my mother who was born and educated there and my father also went to boarding school there and rowed on the lake. When the Melbourne Olympic games were held in 1956 Lake Wendouree hosted the rowing events. Ballarat is freezing cold in Winter and it usually snows. Spring and Autumn are the best times to experience the city and lake. There are many nesting waterbirds on islands in the lake and this beautiful Cygnet and its sole sibling paddled past while we ate lunch recently.

HMVS Cerberus was built for the colonial government of Victoria in 1870 as naval defence against possible Russian attack. This design was the first turrented , motorised ironclad battleship without sails making it highly innovative for its day. There were two swivelling turrents with 2 ten inch guns in each. Thick armour up to 9 inches, (230 mm) thick covered the ship). The Cerberus was was not really suited to ocean travel and became uncontrollable in rough seas meaning it took quite some time to travel from Chatham England where it was built to Melbourne Australia. The warship never fired a shot in action and never left Port Phillip Bay. after its arrival . In 1924 the Cerberus was sold for scrap and in 1926 what remained , (a hulk) as seen in the photos was scuttled to form a breakwater at Black Rock on Port Phillip Bay.

Since then the ship has been rusting away and settling on the sand . Its a mecca for curious scuba divers, snorkelers and adventurous teenagers. Various signs warn of the dangers associated with entering the underwater holes in the ship or climbing onto the actual hulk. Since 2005 a local group has been trying to raise funds to save what is left of the Cerberus as a significant part of Victoria and Australia’s naval heritage. This is a valiant effort.

Jill and I have been away for a few days down the West Coast of Victoria to Warrnambool my old home town of teenage years. The main reason was to catch up with some dear family friends going back to those teenage years and photograph birds. We also hoped to see the first of this season’s Southern Right Whales as they return down the Australian east coast for birthing in what is their traditional nursery in this particular section of the South West Victorian coast. Whales lived in virtual paradise here until the English invasion of 1788. Whale oil was in high demand and within 10 years whalers and sealers hunted along the Victorian coastline slaughtering both species in their thousands. Whaling officially ended in Australia in 1978 with the closure of the last station hunting Sperm and Humpback whales off the South West corner of Western Australia at Albany. To see these beautiful mammals and the care shown by mothers to babies brings thousands of people to Warrnambool from June to November. Whale watching is also popular right down the entire Eastern seaboard. We were staying just near the Whale watching platform and visited there on our third day. After looking keenly out to sea for 10 minutes along with many other people a voice suddenly called out “there she blows” someone else called there might be a baby. The whale or whales were some hundreds of metres off the beach and the telephoto lens shots just give an idea of their presence. We were so lucky.

We spent last weekend at Castlemaine and became caught up in the Castlemaine Arts festival. See http://castlemainefestival.com.au/ On Saturday we were chasing an open artists workshop trail on a back road near Walmer/Muckleford when we came upon this train.

The BUNYIP is a mythical Australian Aboriginal creature, large , black, living in swamps and marshes and active after dark. Bunyip stories made sure children did not stray at night. To support this story an active night bird called the Australasian Bittern lives in swamps and makes incredibly spine chilling boom boom noises. I could not resist the opportunity for metaphor.

There is a historical train society that maintains the rail link between Castlemaine and Maldon and regularly runs tourist trips between the 2 towns and were certainly in action with the festival. The train and rolling stock predates the mid C20th . At the time I felt haiku coming on, then I discovered the one a week Photo Challenge word challenge this week is HISTORICAL . This is my challenge. For this years challenge planned by Cathy and Sandra visit Cathy’s blog at https://nanacathydotcom.wordpress.com/one-a-week-photo-challenge-2017/